An aerial photo of Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, where Amazon will be building out HQ2.
Shutterstock

The region?s experience suggests no city is ready for a project like HQ2 This is what winning was supposed to look like in the tech-forward 21st-century economy. Last month, Virginia Tech announced that it would be building a new 1-million-square foot innovation campus in Alexandria, Virginia, positioning the area to better reap the rewards of the forthcoming Amazon HQ2 being built nearby in Crystal City, which will take over 6 million square feet of office space and bring at least 25,000 new jobs to the region by the mid-2030s.
Area leaders and politicians gushed about the implications for the northern Virginia economy, seeing the campus as validation of the multiplier effects of landing HQ2, the economic development prize billed as a once-a-generation chance for a city to reinvent itself. Local entrepreneur Sanju Bansal said the campus would foster collaborations that could ?result in the next Googles and Amazons taking root in our own backyard.? When Amazon announced its intentions to effectively split its new headquarters between northern Virginia and New York City last year, Virginia leaders felt that taking home half the prize was still an affirmation of the region?s bid.
?This is, above all, a validation of our community?s commitment to sustainability, transit-oriented development, affordable housing and diversity,? then-Arlington County Board Chai...